The 2023 U.S. Open begins today in Queens, N.Y., and one of the tournament’s all-time greatest and most beloved competitors is back in the field, making her 24th appearance in the main draw. That player is 43-year-old Venus Williams, a two-time champ who, along with her sister Serena, a six-time champ, utterly revolutionized the game of tennis over the last three decades.
The Williams sisters introduced what The New York Times calls an “aggressive, all-action” playing style that has become standard on the professional circuit. In doing so, they’ve racked up more than two dozen combined Grand Slam singles titles and emerged as powerful role models for young people of color who dream of succeeding in traditionally white spaces.
The amazing story of the Williams sisters is familiar even to those with zero interest in tennis. Raised in Compton, California—the city that famously gave rise to N.W.A—Venus and Serena started playing tennis at a very early age. Coached by their fiercely determined father, Richard, who sometimes battled local gang members for use of public courts, Serena and Venus became child prodigies and turned pro in their teens. The sport would never be the same.
Serena, whom experts like John McEnroe consider the greatest player of all time, won 23 Grand Slam titles before announcing her “evolution” away from the game last August, just before competing in what may have been her final U.S. Open. Venus, who’s still active, has seven Grand Slam singles wins to her credit. As doubles partners, Venus and Serena have won 14 Grand Slam titles. Impressive as these numbers are, they don’t fully illustrate the greatness or importance of the Williams sisters.
Venus and Serena battled racism and sexism throughout their careers and overcame challenges that other players never experience. They’re the rare kinds of athletes who transcend sports and become cultural icons capable of affecting real change in the world. No wonder they’ve been immortalized in hundreds of song lyrics.
In advance of Venus’ upcoming U.S. Open appearance—and in honor of everything she and Serena have accomplished—we at Genius decided to run the numbers and examine the lyrical legacy of the Williams sisters.
The Numbers
According to Genius data, no fewer than 487 songs make reference to one or both of the Williams sisters. A plurality of these references—238 of them—mention Serena alone, while the sisters are mentioned together 230 times. (Only 19 of the lyrical mentions pertain solely to Venus.) Hip-hop is the main genre that name-checks the Williams sisters—437 of the songs are categorized as such—and the most popular year for mentions was 2019.
The Drake Subplot
In terms of pageviews, the biggest song on Genius with a mention of either Williams sister is Drake’s “Worst Behavior,”, a single off his 2014 album Nothing Was the Same. As Drizzy scoffs at haters and celebrates his come-up, he makes a pretty outrageous claim regarding his ability to compete with Serena on the court.
I’m with my whole set, tennis matches at the crib
I swear I could beat Serena when she playin’ with her left
In a 2015 interview, Serena actually called Drake a “really good player.” But she rolled her eyes at the notion of Drake defeating her, even when she goes lefty. She added that his boast got her “charged up.” About a month later, Serena lost in the finals of the U.S. Open, and some tennis fans blamed Drake’s presence for distracting Williams and costing her a major victory. It wasn’t the first time the two had made headlines together, and it wouldn’t be the last.
The Drake-Serena timeline seems to start in 2011, when the Canadian superstar began turning up at Serena’s matches. That August, Drizzy fired off this thirsty tweet: “@serenawilliams I cannot wait to put it on you and make you sweat……….during our match this weekend.” Those words naturally sparked dating rumors, and that didn’t sit well with fellow rapper Common, who’d broken up with Serena in 2010.
Common promptly took shots at Drake on his 2011 song “Sweet,” accusing him of being soft, and Drake fired back on Rick Ross’s “Stay Schemin’.” After the two grown men finally squashed their beef a couple years later, Common admitted they’d been squabbling over Serena.
Fast-forward to 2022, by which time Serena had been married for about five years to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. That year, Drake released the album Her Loss, and on the track “Middle of the Ocean,” he goes hard at Ohanian, making both a vague threat and a nifty play on words involving the upscale restaurant chain Nobu. It was a very Drake move.
Sidebar, Serena, your husband a groupie
He claim we don’t got a problem but
No, boo, it is like you comin’ for sushi
We might pop up on ’em at will like Suzuki
In a classy clapback that didn’t mention Drake by name, Ohanian tweeted that he strives to be “the best groupie for [his] wife & daughter.”
It’s unclear whether this celebrity saga will have future chapters. What’s certain is that Serena is a main character, not a bit player in someone else’s story. By an overwhelming majority, her other lyrical references bear this out.
“Racks Like Serena”
Serena Williams isn’t just one of the most decorated female athletes of all time—she’s also among the wealthiest. Recent estimates put her net worth north of $270 million, and that makes her a logical reference point for rappers crafting similes about how rich they are. It doesn’t hurt that “rack,” a slang term for $1,000 in cash, sounds a lot like “racket,” the piece of sporting equipment Serena wields so expertly.
One of the first rappers to riff on the whole racks/racquet thing was Gucci Mane, who likens himself to Serena on “Intro,” the leadoff track of his 2015 mixtape The Oddfather. But money doesn’t solve all of his problems. Guwop jokes that he’s run afoul of roughly 18,000 people, the capacity of the Atlanta sports venue now known as the State Farm Arena.
Got so many enemies, can fill the Phillips Arena
And I hunt like an hyena, play with racks like Serena
According to Genius pageviews, the most popular song with a Serena-related racks pun is Future’s 2020 smash “Life Is Good,” featuring the aforementioned Drake. Here, Future seems to imply that he’s rich enough to hang with Serena, which definitely puts him in an exclusive club.
Racks by the ton, I call up Serena
I go tremendo for new fettuccine
Nicki Minaj does something similar on 2017’s “Regret In Your Tears” while also comparing her famously curvy body to that of late Tejano sensation Selena.
I count up the racks like Serena
Plus I got that ass like Selena
“Backhand” Compliments
Serena Williams’ two-handed backhand is truly a sight to behold. The New York Times went so far as to create an interactive video that goes frame-by-frame through the incredible way Williams bends her right wrist, opens up her stance parallel to the baseline, and fires the ball at opponents with extreme power and precision. It’s a lot of fun to watch—unless you’re the poor soul playing against her.
That famed backhand gets referenced in a handful of hip-hop songs, and it’s never just about Serena’s masterful tennis technique. “Backhand” also means “slap,” and that makes for all kinds of lyrics that speak to both Serena’s unparalleled hitting skills and her proven ability to put the smack down on adversaries. She’s a symbol of strength on and off the court.
On the 2018 Jennifer Lopez single “Dinero,” Cardi B delivers one of her trademark boast-filled verses, talking up her money and sex appeal before comparing herself to Serena in terms of forcefulness. And like Minaj before her, she rhymes “Serena” with “Selena,” referencing two legends in one fell swoop. (Bonus points to Cardi because J-Lo played Selena in a 1997 biopic.)
I told y’all, I’m trap Selena
I’ll backhand a bitch like Serena
We need the guap, run up in your spot
Put it to your head like, “Give me what you got”
Cardi wasn’t the first rapper to make this kind of “backhand” joke. Detroit hip-hop vet Royce da 5’9” got there nearly a decade earlier with 2010’s “Forever (Freestyle),” which flips the beat from the 2009 all-star posse cut “Forever,” featuring Drake, Eminem, Kanye West, and Lil Wayne. Here, Royce gets into pimp mode while paying homage to an Ice-T classic.
Pimping ain’t easy, but bitch I’m in the building
I’m the smack man, I got a backhand like Serena Williams
The Feminine Ideal
There is no single body type that’s superior to all others. Everyone’s idea of beauty is different. But in pop culture, some ideals come up again and again, and in hip-hop lyrics, the epitome of female physical beauty is often symbolized by Serena Williams. “I know what a ten is / You not Serena,” raps A Boogie wit da Hoodie on his 2016 track “D.T.B. (Interlude),” honoring the younger Williams while making a goofy play on words. While some of the mentions skew sexist—particularly as they almost always focus on one body part—we’re not entirely mad at the Serena worship. After all, she’s been honing her physique for decades with intense athletic conditioning, and that deserves to be celebrated.
On his 2005 hit “Gold Digger,” featuring Jamie Foxx—the most popular reference to Serena as the feminine ideal, according to Genius pageviews—Kanye West shows his admiration for the tennis star’s sculpted body. The moment comes in the first verse, where Ye receives a psychic reading he’s got mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it involves four annoying nepo-babies looking for their dad to hook them up in the industry. But it turns out his future wife will be shaped like one of the greatest tennis players of all time. He’s not complaining about that part of the prophecy.
My psychic told me she’ll have a ass like Serena
Trina, Jennifer Lopez, four kids
And I gotta take all they bad asses to showbiz?
Pop Smoke was also enamored of Serena’s figure. On his 2020 track “Enjoy Yourself,” the late NYC rapper fixates on the same bodily region Kanye does, and he once again evokes Selena. (As per Genius data, eight songs in the history of popular music mention both Serena and Selena.)
She got a fat ass, shorty shaped like Serena (Oh, ooh)
Long hair, brown eyes, shorty look like Selena (Selena)
Pillars of Excellence
When discussing Venus and Serena’s success, one word that absolutely never comes up is “luck.” These women have been working hard toward their career goals since before they hit double-digit age, and to watch either of them play is to witness a master at work. Plenty of rappers understand this, and they name-check the Williams sisters as a way of emphasizing their own musical greatness.
On her 2012 song “NonFiction,” North Carolina-born rapper Rapsody can’t help but think of Serena and Venus’ athleticism when reflecting on her own skills as a lyricist.
I shine, my rhymes come paired like the Williams
Similarly, on her 2018 Rico Nasty-assisted song “Tia Tamera,” Doja Cat riffs on the word “hit,” comparing her biggest songs to the forceful tennis shots made by Venus and Serena. It was maybe a little presumptuous at the time the song was released—she’d yet to even notch a Top 40 placement on the Billboard Hot 100—but given that she’s scored seven Top 10 hits in the last three years, it’s safe to say Doja knew something we didn’t.
Thick in the right motherfuckin’ places
Hits like Venus, Serena (Ayy)
Once you find a way to turn talent into success, the real trick is making it last. It’s not easy to drown out the internal and external noise and produce increasingly better work as time goes by while also remaining relevant and fresh.
Scroll through a list of the Williams sisters’ championship titles, and it’s instantly clear they’ve mastered the longevity thing. In that way, they’re like British rapper Stormzy, who’s managed to stay on top of the U.K. grime scene for almost a decade now. Since breaking through in 2014, he’s earned three No. 1 singles and three No. 1 albums. Stormzy makes the Williams comparison himself on his 2019 song “Superheroes,” where he cleverly uses some tennis jargon to explain how he avoided becoming a one-hit wonder.
Tedious pressure so then I curve it
Serena or Venus, the way I serve it
Inspirational Figures
Growing up in Compton, Serena and Venus had to overcome a lot. They never attended elite tennis academies, and they had to come up with creative ways to train at the high level needed to go pro. In the 2012 documentary Venus and Serena, a family friend recalls Richard Williams going to country clubs with a shopping cart to collect hundreds of used balls to practice with because he couldn’t afford his own.
Their sisters’ remarkable journey from used-ball-hitting hopefuls to world-conquering titans has become the stuff of legend. It’s the subject of the 2021 film King Richard, and it’s been referenced in dozens of hip-hop lyrics. The pair’s against-all-odds story certainly made an impact on rapper The Game, who like the Williams sisters grew up in Compton and found the kind of success most people only dream of. On his 2014 song “Better Days,” he hopes the resilience that he and the Williams sisters have demonstrated will inspire a new generation to follow their dreams.
I’m thinking ’bout my sons’ safety every time they leave the house
I know how to make it out the hood, I seen the route
And here’s the proof, me, Venus, and Serena out
